36 I " -.".. n7'"" ) . .... :>"'" , .. ! .. IøI- W ILLIAM RABKIN, president and owner of the InternatÎonal Mutoscope Corporation, an or- ganization that for fifty-three years has been devoted to the manufacture of coin-operated amusement machines, is a tolerant man. Among the activities from which he derives little or no pleasure are testing his back muscles; shooting down imitation airplanes with an imitation machine gun; cutting a phonograph record of himself singing "Always" or saying hello to Ma; at- tempting to discover whether his dis- position vis-à-vis the opposite sex is furious, mild, shy, jealous, cold, care- ful, modest, or loving; watching one- minute motion pictures entitled "What Girls Do When Alone" and "Life of Rudolph Valentino;" having a 2%- inch-by-3 7i -inch metal-framed photo- graph of himself printed and delivered forty-five seconds after it is taken; and buying "a card reading "Heaven pro- tects the working girl, but who protects the guy she's working?" or a three- color picture captioned "Slip Off Shore," which depicts a young lady wading ankle-deep in what looks like Manhasset Bay with her skirt hoisted well above her knees. Given about eighty cents' worth of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters in the right propor- tion, Rabkin could, if he wanted, do all these things, in the order named, by visiting any penny arcade or, for that matter, his own showroom, and ap- plying himself successively to a Lift- O-Graph, a Sky Fighter, a V oice-O- Graph, a Love Pilot, a Mutoscope, a Photomatic, and a Victory De Luxe Lite-Up Top Card Vendor, which are only seven of several dozen amusement machines manufactured, now or in the past, by his company. Rabkin prefers attending the opera or reading the PROFILé5 _ 0 o PENNY-ARCADE PHILANTHROPIST works of :Madame Blavat- sky. Fortunately for him, however, he is not dogmatic about his tastes. As a man whose machines are standard equipment in arcades from here to the Malay Peninsula, he is happy that opinions dif- fer as to what is entertaining and what isn't. So energetically tolerant has Rabkin been, in fact, that International Mutoscope, a forlorn hope when he\became interested in it, in 1920, now has over two hundred employees, gross- es better than two million dollars in most years, and is, as its owner enjoys pointing out, the largest manufacturer of amusement machines-as opposed to vending machines, the other principal division of the coin-machine industry- east of North Tonawanda, New York, where the mighty Wurlitzer juke-box factory stands. Juke-box manufacturers excepted, M utoscope is the largest amusement-machine outfit this side of Chicago, the center of the coin-machine industry and the home of such giant concerns as Mills, Gottlieb, Bally, Genco, Rock-Ola, and Seeburg, which turn out, by the thousand, not only juke boxes and penny-arcade contrivances but slot machines and pin-balI-and, lately, "roll-down"-games In New York, the manufacture of gambling devices is forbidden by law, and the law regards pin-ball games as gambling devices. The roll-downs, in which the balls are set in motion directly by hand, instead of by a plunger, and which their sponsors therefore claim are games of skill, are also looked upon with dis- approval locally , and all but the most in- nocuous of them have been outlawed. People whose only contact with the world of coin machines is Rabkin find it difficult to understand why an indus- try in which such an obviously respecta- ble citizen earns a living is so frequently regarded with suspicion by the police. Rabkin does not wear hand-painted neckties, does not address anyone except his two brothers as "Brother," does not attempt to bribe law officers Dr avoid paying his debts; he is generous with his money, and he enjoys attending the an- nual conventions of the Coin Machine Industries, the trade association of his business, in the company of his wife, a habit some of the more orthodox delegates, if they pause long enough between blondes to give it any thought at all, consider shocking. He is a resolute man, a Russian by birth and long since naturalized, with a square, robust build, a voluble but unemphatic manner of speech, and a mournful expression, which some of his associates attribute to the blows that have been dealt, during his years in the amusement-machine business, to his deep conviction that man is a noble creature. Several of Muto- scope's most successful machines, it pains Rabkin to realize, are based on the assumption that mankind is anything but noble and is, instead, a willing host to such traits as vanity (the Photomatic, the Punch-A-Bag), love of destruction (the Sky Fighter), desire to get some- thing for nothing (the Electric Travel- ling Crane), lack of self-confidence (the Love Pilot), and sexual frustra- tion (the Mutoscope and the Victory De Luxe Lite-Up Top Card Vendor, both of which stress pictures of ladies without many clothes on). In addition, as an occasional misanthrope has pointed out to Rabkin, amusement machines are cannily designed so that no de- tachable parts are exposed, built to withstand violent kicks and blows, and equipped with burglarproof locks and sturdy contrivances calculated to foil the phony-nickel crowd. Continual con- templation of a public that would seem to consist largely of egotists, vandals, and scallawags has curdled the good will of many men. Rabkin, however, is determinedly mellow. "Pecple don't mean any harm by it," he often says. "There's just something about a coin machine that makes them act up." T HERE is nothing about a coin machine that makes Rabkin act up. His contribution to what virtue there is in the world is substantial. Tucked away in his desk in his factory, in Long I$land City, where it is imme- diately accessible to him whenever, as is often the case, he feels the need of its support, is a card on which is printed: I shall pass through this world but once.. Any good, therefore. I can do, Or any kindness that I can show To any human being, Let me do it now. Let me not Defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. Author Unknown By this admirable and difficult precept, RabkIn endeavors to govern his life. His